by cameron | Feb 2, 2009 | Cuba, Iraq, Podcast, US politics
When I was visiting my girl Chrissy in Seattle last October, I met her best friend Jed Montgomery. The four of us (including Jed’s partner Chris) had some vigorous debates about American politics. I was trying to make my point that for all of Obama’s intelligence and oratory, at the end of the day he’s a member of the Democratic Party. In the last 60 years, the Democrats have provided a pretty appalling list of Presidents:
Harry Truman – Among other things, authorized the only use of nuclear weapons on a civilian population in history
John Kennedy – Among other things, authorized the attempted invasion of Cuba, nearly brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, was sleeping with Marilyn Monroe, etc.
Lyndon Johnson – Among other things, escalated the Vietnam war. Possibly implicated in the Kennedy assassination.
Jimmy Carter – Actually, a pretty good guy, defender of human rights.
Bill Clinton – Bombed and starved the people of Iraq, decided the best way to spend his days in the White House was to get blowjobs and stick cigars up an intern’s vag.
So… will Obama be another Jimmy Carter? Or… one of the others?
Anyway, Jed joins me on the show today to talk about our hopes and concerns for the Obama administration.
by cameron | Feb 1, 2009 | israel, Podcast
You’ve seen it in the news over the last month. On December 27, Israel broke a six-month truce with Hamas (the democratically-elected leaders of the Palestinian people living in Gaza) and launched a three-week long attack on the small, densely-populated region.
Palestinian casualties – 1,400 dead including more than 400 children and 100 women. Israeli casualties – 12 Israeli soldiers and 3 civilians.
My guest on this show is Antony Loewenstein, Sydney-based journalist, author and blogger.
Read more:
David Rose article in Vanity Fair
Henry Siegman, director of the US Middle East Project in New York, former national director of the American Jewish Congress and of the Synagogue Council of America, article “Israel’s Lies”
A note about this show:
With the help of my two assistants Tim Grainger and Jonathan Hewlett, we ran a LIVE TWITSTREAM of the interview through the gdayworld twitter account. We asked people to submit questions via Twitter during the interview and I fed those back to Antony during our call. It was my first attempt at podcast twinterviewing and the results were interesting.
Thanks to Darryl King from iReckon for seeding the filthy idea into my head over coffee a few days ago.
by cameron | Jan 18, 2009 | israel
I’ve been reading “Zionism and Palestine”, a book written in 1937 (and updated in 1940) by Sir Ronald Storrs. His perspective on Zionism is somewhat unique. In 1918 Storrs became Military Governor of Jerusalem. In 1921 he became Civil Governor of Jerusalem and Judea. From 1926-1932 he was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Cyprus.
This morning I read this passage about the suggested return of Jews to Palestine which I suspect puts the Palestinian view into some perspective:
The injunction, under Article 6 of the Mandate, that the Administration “shall encourage in co-operation with the Jewish Agency close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes” in Palestine, sounded with a curious difference in different ears. To the world at large it seemed a reasonable satisfaction by the bestowal of surplus, unused and unwanted areas. To the Zionist, who had hoped that with the prosperity of British rule his rapidly augmented population would need every possible acre of land in the country, it was the obvious initial minimum of concession unwarrantably delayed by the Government. The thinking Arabs regarded Article 6 as Englishmen would regard instructions from a German conqueror for the settlement and development of the Duchy of Cornwall, of our Downs, commons and golf-courses, not by Germans, but by Italians “returning” as Roman legionaries. For such loss of national and political future repeated assurances of strict and scrupulous maintenance of religious rights and sites (assumed under British rule everywhere) were about as satisfactory compensations for the inviolable conservation of the Court of Arches and of Westminster Abbey. Article 6 has not yet been “implemented”, owing to the lack of available State property, but it still stands in the Mandate, and is still being vigorously pressed by Zionists.
by cameron | Jan 15, 2009 | Atheism, Iraq, Podcast
Rapper Greydon Square joins me again on the show to talk about his new album The CPT Theorem.
If you haven’t heard of 27 year-old Greydon before (or heard my first interview with him), his story is interesting: he grew up (as Eddie Collins) in a Group Home in Compton, California, got involved with a gang at a young age, was busted for a crime, and given the choice of prison or joining the US Army. He chose the latter and ended up in the US Army in 2001 and Iraq in 2004. During this time he was a committed Christian who studied the Bible. The more he studied the Bible the more questions he had about his religion which lead to his becoming an atheist, with many of the lyrics of his rap songs focus on atheism and the skeptic inquiry. He also is completing a physics major. His fans include Richard Dawkins, Penn Jillette… and yours truly.
This time, instead of focusing on his atheism, I wanted to talk to Greydon about how he writes his music. He’s a one man band – producer, composer, lyricist, performer, businessman. And, as you’ll here on the tracks I’ve laid into the interview, his shit is excellent.
You can buy his albums through iTunes or from the link on his MySpace.
by cameron | Jan 14, 2009 | israel
No – that’s not ME saying that. I have no evidence to support it.
It’s actually a quote attributed to former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon from 2001.
The quote (which is allegedly from a conversation between Sharon and his Foreign Minister, as quoted by Israeli radio) reads:
I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it.
(I found the link on the Beyond The Fringe blog).
Why would Sharon say that? How does it all work? I have no theories. But I find it an interesting quote.
by cameron | Jan 14, 2009 | israel, US politics
From the “When You Can’t Even Trust Your Friends” department:
A boast by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he persuaded President Bush to reverse a U.S. vote on a Gaza cease-fire at the United Nations is “just 100% totally completely not true,” the State Department declared Tuesday.
(from the LA Times – are they still running?)
So – one of them is lying.
You have to wonder – what incentive would Olmert have to lie about such a thing? To make it sound like he has pull with an out-going US President? What’s the point of that? Especially when his phone call didn’t stop the vote passing.
But if you ask yourself what incentive the USA would have for lying – that’s much easier to comprehend. They don’t want it to seem like the US President takes orders from Israel.
The LA Times story also says that diplomats from around the world were sure the vote was going to be unanimous minutes before it happened, so it seems obvious that the US State Dept is lying through their teeth.
What do you think?
(Update: Beyond The Fringe has a great and detailed analysis here.)
